


St Vincent's

by semurdoch



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Blindness, Daredevil Spoilers, F/M, Matt Murdoch/original female character, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Work In Progress, blind superhero, help im bad at dialogue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4068610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semurdoch/pseuds/semurdoch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Murdoch is a blind vigilante known as Daredevil, this is true. Deep in his heart, he hates what he has had to become to protect his city. What he never thought he would do is give someone the chance to make this their fate too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey all! im very excited to debut my first fic in the dd fandom. im a bit rusty, but im excited to tell this tale. forgive me if there are errors, i really hate proof reading. thanks!

It’s raining. I can hear every drop, I can feel the storm expanding around me. I can smell the moisture, the acid rain making everything sodden with it’s disease. The heat of the city lights being reflected off the pavement, the rain making the concrete a temporary funhouse mirror. I can feel it all.

My eyes are open, but they see nothing. I see everything. I can feel the underlying hum of the city that follows me everywhere. I can hear hundreds of televisions, microwaves, laptops, car engines. Voices, fighting, snoring, crying. Energy from buildings, generators, the sheer amount of energy Hell’s Kitchen alone is producing right now hits me. Everything, all of it, creates a type of visual. A multilayered image of a world on fire. Red, boiling… pure hellfire.  I let it all in. I let it consume me.

 

“So where were you last night?” Foggy asks me, his voice hushed and hurried. I quickly listen for a moment, asserting that Karen is indeed not in the office. I reply evenly, in a normal tone.

“I was watching the rain.” This is the truth, I tell myself.

“Good one,” says Foggy. “A blind man makes a pun about his blindness. Classic. Have you ever thought about going to one of those sensitivity training classes? Maybe it will help with business.”

I chuckle, but give no reply. My hands are running quickly over a case file. It’s lunch but Foggy and I are too busy to go get anything ourselves. If I listen closely enough, I can hear Karen down the block getting us lunch; proof of how busy we are at this very moment. I wonder to myself, if we’re so busy that Karen has to fetch us lunch, why is Foggy suddenly inquiring about my night? I stop my hands, suddenly nervous.

“What’s up Foggy?” I ask.

“What do you mean ‘what’s up’? I can’t ask about your night?” He retorts.

“You’ve got something on your mind. Why else would you ask about my night in the middle of all this?” I say, using my hands to blindly refer to the paperwork that is surrounding us. We’re in the conference room instead of our offices, working together in silence on this case.

“You… seem tired. But also not beat up. No bruises, for once.” Foggy comments, and I can hear the smirk in his tone. He’s teasing me.

“What are you saying?” I ask.

“Could there have a been a girl?” He says, “Perhaps a beautiful one you should tell me all about?” His voice squeaks in half-hearted excitement. Really, I think he’s just glad I’m not out ‘being a martyr’ as he calls it. But the possibility of a girl, definitely excites him.

“You could say that…”

“Please, tell me all the gory details before Karen gets back!” He begs, and when I don’t answer right away he rolls up a piece of paper and lobs it at me. Hearing it whistle through the air, I backhand it at just the right second so that it goes back and hits Foggy gently in the nose.

“Foggy, I swear if that was a case file I’ll--”

“You’ll what Matt? Beat me up with your weird blind-person powers? I don’t see that happening.” He laughs, making a very good point.

“I’ll leave you here to do this all yourself.”

“Yeah nice try, half of this shit is yours too. And Karen would kill you.” He says, again making valid points that make me smile. “Please tell me about the girl.”

I sigh quietly, not knowing how to explain. I think back to the rain, to the storm surrounding me, to the energy bouncing off of everything. I was on top of my roof, listening to the city. Particularly a hospital.

In my bed at night I kept hearing a sort of crying, a sorrow that resonated so deeply inside of me it found me in my deepest sleep to wake me up. So I listened and listened until I finally found the source, a beacon of light in a gleaming city under darkness. It was a female voice crying, a body stirring in a bed, a rapid but steady heartbeat. I remember distinctly hearing her scratch at bandages, no not bandages; restraints. I wanted to know why she was there, why she was crying so softy by herself chained to a hospital bed. She couldn’t be sick, her heartbeat was so strong and quick. Like her body needed her blood circulated faster than normal, like she was burning through all of her energy.

Then I heard police officers, two of them in her room. I still mistrusted the police, even if Fisk was put away and his paid men put to jail. There was always a chance that a cop was dirty.

They questioned her, I couldn’t make out all of it. Her heartbeat was so incredibly loud that, paired with all the noises of the machines and the city itself, it drowned out their words. I heard some things, something about a lab and an “accident”. Maybe something about stealing, but also murder? After the entire conversation was done, I realized she was just about to be charged with a crime. But why was she in a hospital? Why had her heart stayed steady while she answered her questions, other than the fact she was obviously innocent of whatever crime they were bestowing upon her? My curiosity burned me from the inside out.

I try explaining this as best I can to Foggy, the girl and how I need to know what’s going on. I tell him I’m leaving after the office to visit her, see if maybe I can offer her legal advice.

“You’re crazy, Matt. Nothing about this is as sexy as I’d hoped and I am honestly disappointed.” Foggy tells me, and I can tell he’s frowning.

“Please, just listen,” I tell him, “This could be a potential client. With an interesting case! Trust me on this once.”

He considers my logic for a few moments while we work. “Just figure out how you’re going to explain how you found out about her case. Maybe do some real research about it first? Like a real life lawyer? Be careful.”

Foggy’s serious tone and genuine concern has been a prominent feature in our friendship ever since he found out about me being Daredevil, and hearing all the stories about me almost dying. It made the usually lighthearted Foggy a worried friend, one he had never been so routinely. It makes my heart sink.

“Ill be careful.” I reassure him.

The rest of the day goes by fairly quickly, the piles of papers and files slowly being organized and used to help build our current case. One about a young African American man being charged with accessory to a robbery. He was only half innocent; waited in the car unknowingly as the getaway driver, but then also didn’t call the police once he knew what they had done.  

“Karen,” I say, “I’m leaving a bit early tonight… to deal with a potential client. See you tomorrow? Maybe we can all go out for drinks over the weekend.” Even without my abilities I can tell she’s smiling. I hear her hair rustle as she nods enthusiastically, and then curses because she remembers I can’t see that. I leave her with a smile, trying not to show how worried I am about the girl. Something about her crying, it makes me feel anxious to find out how her condition is.

I catch a cab to the hospital, St. Vincent’s. It’s closer to my apartment than it is to the office, I’m glad I won’t have a hard time getting home.

It’s small, and you probably wouldn’t even know it’s a hospital from the outside. It was kind of trashed from the incident and even after two and a half years, renovations are still on going. It seems like the type of place someone who was an alleged criminal with injuries would be sent.  

Once I get there, I stumble in feigning confusion, and once the receptionist sees my glasses and cane, her heart beats a little bit faster.

“Can I help you, sir?” She asks, her voice full of sympathy.

“Yes… I’m looking a client of mine. I-I seemed to have misplaced her name. We talked on the phone and I had nothing to write her name down on to bring. I thought I could remember… I’m very sorry miss, can you please help me?” I lace my voice with hits of helpfulness and panic. I add to the effect by slightly bumping into her desk, and steadying myself on the edge of it.

“Well… can you tell me maybe what she looks like-- oh I’m sorry did you say you only talked in the phone?” She asks. Nice save, I thought. “Maybe you can tell me her injuries. I listen closely for her steady heartbeat, locating her room but it’s impossible to tell her room number. There’s another, more sluggish heartbeat outside of her door. An officer.

“Yes. She’s only the second floor, mid twenties perhaps, and she’s probably the only person in this hospital with a police officer outside her door.” I tell her, and listen closely to her heartbeat. It’s steady for a second, but when I smell at her, it stutters. I feel bad about it, but I put my hand out and clumsily find hers on the desk.

“Please?” I beg. Her heart is hammering as she takes her hand away.

“I-I think I know who you’re talking about. Her name is Cathleen, does that ring a bell?” I nod. “Cathleen K. O’Connor. Tell the police officer Dana okay’d you. She’s on the second floor, room 201.”

“Thank you so much.” I tell her.

I take the elevator up, pressing the button for the second floor (after reading the Braille to make sure). I step out, going to the left where I hear the heartbeats. There are only two on this floor. That’s not worrying, I think sarcastically to myself. The officer becomes alert to me as soon as she hears the elevator, probably not expecting anyone. She has the same assumption as the receptionist, that I’m confused or lost.

“I come in peace.” I say as I approach her, one of my hands held up in surrender, the other on my guiding cane. She seems hesitant, her heart beat fast. She’s apprehensive. “Dana said I was “okay’d”. I explain.

“State your name and business.” The police officer commands me.

“Matthew Murdoch, with Nelson & Murdoch. I’m a lawyer, I’d like to represent Ms.O’Connor if she does not already have an attorney.” By the end of my sentence, her heart starts to slow down. She accepts my explanation. I hear her nod, and then feel the heat from her face as she flushes when she realizes she’d just nodded at a blind man.

“Okay, Mr.Murdoch. I’ll have to give you a pat down before you go in.”

“I would be worried if you didn’t.” I assure her.

She indeed gives me a pat down, probably more gently than she would with a sighted person which is fine with me. She probably should take my cane away because it most definitely could be used as a weapon, but she doesn’t. Not that I need it.

When I go in, the room is smaller than I expected. I can feel the heat radiating off of Cathleen, it feels so good to finally know her name, and try to assess her injuries from across the room. She’s silent, her heart slower than usual. She’s sleeping.

“O’Connor, wake up. Someone is here to see you.” The female officer says, and then I realize I hadn’t asked her name. Manners, Matty I can hear my dad say in the back of my mind.

Cathleen startles away, her hands instinctively bracing against the restraints on her wrists. Her heart spikes, which I can hear on the machine, and then calms when she can see it’s just her officer and a blind man.

I sit down and explain who I am.

“So, you’re a lawyer and you’re interested in taking me on as a client. What if I already have a lawyer from the DA’s office?”

“You can drop them and hire me.”

“Do you know what crime I’m being charged with, Mr.Murdoch? Do you know the reason I’m going to jail? Do you know why I’m permanently blinded Mr.Murdoch? Did Officer Sullivan tell you that?” She’s breathing hard now, her heart is beating fast. “Hmm? Did she?”

I can’t believe I missed that. I can’t believe I didn’t catch the way she whipped her head around, unseeing. I realize now that there is scratching on the skin around her eye sockets. Bandages. Like the ones I got after my accident, in the hospital. I hold my breath for a few seconds, picking my words carefully as I get over my shock.

“Miss O’Connor… I am not entirely aware of what you are being charged with. I caught wind of your case from a friend of mine in the police department, who isn’t legally allowed to tell me all the details. But your blindness… It makes me want to help you even more.” I hate lying to her, but I feel better knowing that the last part is true. I identify with her condition, with her heart ache, with her anger. I understand it.

I walk forward, slowly so that she’s knows I’m doing it. She flinches when I get close. I take her hand, it’s warm, and place it on the top of my cane. She gasps with realization, and strains against her restraints for a moment.

“Y-you’re blind?” She whispers, “My god. What type of fucking bad sitcom is this?”

It’s the wrong time and place, but I chuckle despite myself. This is honestly like a bad Lifetime movie, but it feels right. It feels like I need to help her.

“Cathleen,” I say gently, “What are you being accused of?”

Her heart takes off.

“I’m being charged with attempted murder, Mr.Murdoch. And no one believes my story, no one listens.” Her heart is fluttering, but I can’t tell if it’s because she’s lying or if it’s hard for her to say out loud.

**“I’ll listen to you. If I believe you’re innocent, or something about the circumstances you were in makes me believe this is wrong, I will represent you. I will do everything in my power, if you tell me the truth.”**


	2. someone to believe in

Cathleen drops her lawyer from the DA, and Nelson & Murdoch take her on as a client. The whole process takes two days, and then another two for Foggy and I to sort through her case. It’s a lot of material, but she’s an established researcher in the scientific community, and she’s paying us well. I was surprised she hadn’t hired a private lawyer before, but I can see how being suddenly being without your sight in the middle of your life can be distracting from that kind of thing. At least when I was blinded I was young enough to be able to adapt and live my life that way.

Cathleen O’Connor is twenty-eight, she’s gone to school, has a doctorate. Her life will never be the same. She’s not married, she lives alone, she has no family she’s in contact with. She is absolutely and one hundred percent on her own.

“Can you please for the record state your name?” Foggy says as he clicks on the recorder between us, and Cathleen. She swallows, I can hear her heart speed up from nervousness.

“Cathleen O’Connor.” She says, her voice husky and wavering.

“What are you being charged with?”

A pause.

“Attempted murder.” I can hear the crack of her bones when she makes a fist.

“Can you please tell Mr.Murdoch and myself what happened on the night of Wednesday, the second of September, twenty-fifteen?”

“Yes,” she breaths, “I was working late. At the lab… doing research. I’m a geneticist, I do important work on diseases, DNA, particularly with sensory information. Like Sensory Processing Disorder? Hyperosmia?” Cathleen takes a breath, she’s breathing hard. Her heart is starting to slow, the beat more regular.

“Hyperosmia?” I ask, although I know very well what it is.

“A heightened sense of smell, Mr.Murdoch.” She explains, and then continues. “Anyways, the work we do is important. The company I work for wanted everything very under wraps, very hush hush. Look, I have a PhD, I know when to keep my mouth shut and not question anything.”

“But the thing is,” she goes on, “is that things started to get a little weird.”

“Define ‘weird’, Miss O’Connor.” Foggy says, jotting down notes.

“Weird as in, uncomfortable for me. My supervisor checked in a lot, I’m not even sure he’s a real scientist. I was told I was developing something for people with SPD, kids who can’t hold their pencils at school, who maybe are really sensitive to light, who hear everything. It’s a tough life. But the process, the way we were researching, testing. It was one hundred percent backwards.”

“I was told it was a new way of approaching a problem. ‘Figure out the way to make the problem worse and you can figure out how to make it better!’ is what my supervisor kept telling me.” She mumbles, wringing her hands.

“The supervisors name,” I ask, “What is it?”

“Joe,” she says, “Joe Smith.” Plain name, easily lost in the system, I note.

“We were engineering a virus that would alter genes by going into the nucleus of sensory nerve cells and alter the DNA there. But not to try to correct corrupted genes, or even to combat SPD. We were altering genes to heighten them. To engineer genes that would duplicate, and the virus would spread throughout your body so that when it was done with you, your senses would be a hundred times better than before.”

“So this is some sort of amazing breakthrough right? Look! We’ve figured out a way for every normal human being to be a superhero! Wrong. We’ve found a way to totally and inescapably incapacitate a human being by giving them sensory overload.”

She breathing heavily again, her fists closed, I can hear her bones grinding.

“We tested it on mice, which I kept thinking was ridiculous because this wasn’t what we were supposed to be researching. This wasn’t going to help anyone. But they paid me good money… and I was paying off my student loans from undergrad. So I went along with it. The mice, though, the tests. These mice, they didn’t necessarily get sensory overload and have a heart attack like I thought they would. Evolution is a marvelous thing, and some of them adapted. Their bodies knew that for them to survive what was happening, they had to drop one of their senses. And you know what their bodies dropped seventy-five percent of the time? Sight.”

She stops talking for a moment to fumble for to take a sip of water. I can hear Foggy furiously writing, trying to catch up. She clears her throat and continues.

“I overheard Mr.Smith talking on the phone one night. I was there late running tests on the mice, trying to come up with a reversal of the process. Up until then, all the shady crap, everything that felt wrong… I’d been okay with it. But when I heard what he was talking about-- her teeth ground together loudly-- I couldn’t keep quiet anymore.”

“He was talking about human trials. Human trials! For a solution that is almost guaranteed to render you blind forever, if it doesn’t kill you. So I stepped up, I took a stand, I told him I was done, that this wasn’t right.”

“What happened next?” I ask, trying to level my breathing. She’d told me briefly all this, but I hadn’t heard everything in detail. I couldn’t help but clasp my hands under the table, trying to smother my anger like a flame. I can feel Foggy glancing at me worriedly, knowing this all must hit a sore spot.

“I started to leave. I don’t know, Mr.Smith must have hit a panic button or something. Next thing I know, there are two huge Japanese men blocking my way. I kept thinking, God this is ridiculous! I didn’t think…” She trails off, swallowing painfully. Her heart rate monitor speeds up a little bit, but stays steady.

“I didn’t think,” she finally says, “they would do what they did. I didn’t think I would become a criminal, when I’m the victim.”

“One of the men, he grabbed me, held my hands behind my back. I wanted to fight, I probably should have but it seemed starter to try to talk my way out than fight. Mr.Smith came out, started speaking in Japanese. I don’t know what they were saying, I studied French in college. I think he ordered them to kill me, because they started to drag me out… But then he stopped them. He had them make me kneel in front of him. I thought, it seemed like he was going to assault me. I was going to scream right then. I finally realized I was in real danger, you know? But they found some lab gloves and stuck a handful in my mouth.”

“He left for a few minutes, and he came back with a needle, and a vial of solution. Of course, I knew what it was. I had been working on it for months. It was a solution that contained the virus, for the gene therapy technique. The ones we were giving the mice. He took the needle, he filled it with the solution, and had one man hold open my eyes. H-he stuck the needle in, right into my eye like we do with the mice. He put the solution into both eyes as I thrashed and screamed and cried. I’ve never felt such pain like that in my life.”

She’s crying softly now as she tells us, straining against her restraints.  

“I couldn’t handle it, I passed out. When I woke up… I was in a puddle of blood. At first I thought it was my own, I thought they’d fucking gutted me. I started screaming. But I realized I was fine. But there was one of the Japanese men, specifically the one who’d held me down, his throat was… it was mangled. I was soaked in his blood. But, but he was breathing just slightly.  He was breathing when the cops came in, but I was holding onto a piece of a broken test tube.”

“It was then that a few things happened. First, three police officers burst in, guns raised, screaming. Then, I start screaming. I laid down, put my hands on my head. When I did that, when they started to handcuff me… I started seeing dots. Black dots, all over my vision. Through everything, that’s what worried me most. I knew what this treatment could do. It took a few hours, but I lost my sight in the precinct. I don’t know why I went blind, and didn’t get hyper-senses or anything. All I know is, I’m blind, that guy is in a coma, and I’ve been in a hospital bed for two weeks with bandages over my eyes.”

****  
  


“Can you believe that, Matt? They fucking blinded her! And then set her up!” Foggy exclaims. I’m holding onto his arm as he leads me back to the office, my cane in the other hand.

I’m angry, I’m pissed off beyond belief. I almost couldn’t believe Cathleen’s story myself, if I didn’t already know what people were capable of. I was determined to get her out of this situation, but it would be hard. For once, the cops had done their jobs but there was no evidence of anything to corroborate her story that was concrete. Sure, it’s kind of hard to believe she put the needle in her own eyes, but that could be used as motive to kill the Japanese dude.

“Foggy, she wasn’t lying. She didn’t try to kill that man. They’re going to play it off in court like she did this to herself, and then killed him because he saw. God, maybe they’ll start a case around the fact that she’s a comic book fan and tried to make herself into a superhero or something. They’ll get creative, and they’ll nail her ass to the wall if we don’t stop them.”

“Matt,” he says, “You can.. you can find out who’s doing this right? I wouldn’t normally, uh, suggest using your ‘methods’ but we need a head start. We need a head to hang up on our wall.”

“I think it’s the yakuza. Maybe this is their new ‘Black Sky’. Maybe they’re creating mutants almost, or trying. Can you imagine? Every criminal I fight being, well, like me? Hell’s Kitchen would go down in flames.” I say angrily. “Honestly, the whole damn city would.”

**“We need to stop this.” Foggy responds. “We need to bring her justice.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i had a really tough time getting all the science correct on this. i am really into biology and genetics and i talked to some teachers about this hypothetical situation, but its still not all correct. gene therapy doesn't even usually work that well. anyways, forgive me friends and sorry it's short!


	3. the curse of castaways

“Cathleen,” she says, “Cathleen it’s Karen.”

Of course I already know it’s Karen, I can smell her perfume. She smells faintly like flowers, and all natural detergent. I smile at her, or at least turn my head to the sound of her voice and hope for the best.

“Karen. It’s nice to hear your voice again.” I respond, referring to the phone calls we exchanged in the past week while we worked on my case. Of course, I’m not allowed to leave the hospital, and I don’t leave my room much either. I don’t mind it, the alternative is a holding cell.

“I see you got your bandages off.”  She says.

I flinch. I don’t want to talk about my eyes.

“I’m sorry if they’re unsettling. I haven’t gotten any sunglasses yet.” I respond quietly, trying not to imagine what they look like. Wide, and unseeing? Blue, or maybe white? They weren’t burnt or anything, the bandages were just a precaution against further damage. I never really needed them.

“Oh, no no! I’m sort of used to it, I guess. With Matt’s blindness and all. Though, he doesn’t take his glasses off much around me…” She wanders off, and I can hear her opening a bag, perhaps a purse? It’s hard to tell, it could also be a briefcase. She pulls out something long, maybe metal. My interest piques, I tilt my head so I can listen more closely to what she’s doing.

“That reminds me, I have something for you.” I can hear her hands on metal. “It’s a guiding cane. One of Matt’s old ones… I don’t know when you’ll need it, but he thought it was a good idea for you to have one.” Karen sounds hopeful, as if this cane will make anything better.

“You realize Officer Sullivan isn’t going to let this fly.” I tell her.

“Yes! Yes I thought about that. We talked, she’s going to hold onto it. But Matt was thinking of coming by and showing you how to use it? Before any trials happen.”

I nod, not even bothering to try to look in her direction anymore. My eyes are closed, I’m just trying to keep it together.

“Look,” she says, “I know you want to go straight to a trial but we maybe able to prolong this, figure something out-”

“No.” I interrupt her, “I need this to go straight to trial. Foggy said so himself last week, this could go either way. I’m just going to have faith.”  

Karen spends a few more minutes with me, and then leaves. I try to sleep, I try to not think, not be. The trial will be quick, and if I’m found guilty… I’ll do what I have to. There is nothing left, there’s nothing waiting for me in jail. I can’t help anyone anymore, not like I could before.

 

*****  
  
**

 

“How’s your head?” He asks me, his voice apprehensive.

“I’ve had worse.” I say, and chuckle quietly to myself. “Much worse.”

I didn’t bother with ice, it’s only a small bump.

“Would you like to continue?” Matt asks.

“Yes. I’ll just try not to hit myself in the head this time.” I respond. He laughs.

“Here,” Matt mumbles, “like this.”

He puts his hand over mine, swings it gently back and forth while I grasp the cane firmly. We’re in the hallway of my floor, which is empty except for me. From what I’ve been told, this hospital is less like a real hospital and more like a nursing home. The hallways are carpeted, and the rooms are cozy. This hallway is long, but not very wide; kind of like an apartment's hallway. Matt lets go, and I walk forward cautiously, sweeping my cane along the floor, making the appropriate thumps where I’m supposed to.  

I’m distracted, thinking about how the cane doesn’t feel natural in my hands, how frustrating this, how much it makes me hate myself, hate destiny, hate god himself-

“Watch out!” Matt exclaims, just as I bump into a small table against the wall. I can feel it tip, feel gravity give way to the old wood, I can smell the water and the flowers and hear the whoosh, god I can just reach out and grab it-

Cool glass against my fingertips, the table lopsided on the floor, cane dropped. But the flowers, the water, the glass, it’s all intact. It’s in my hand, not a drop missing. I don’t realize I’m not breathing until my lungs hurt. I take a big gulp. I straighten myself. Wonder what to do with the vase and the flowers.

“Crap, Cathleen are you alright?” Matt asks, making me jump when I realize he’s beside me, fumbling for the table to make it upright. Officer Sullivan jogs over too, and it’s almost like I can feel her annoyance. I just grip the glass, feel it’s coolness, taste the liquid on my tongue, it’s like a lake it’s so vast-

“Cathleen?” Matt repeats my name. I look up at the sound, an old habit now.

“Oh. Oh shit. Right, yeah, I didn’t see it.” I say adding an, “well obviously” to myself at the end. I can’t stop thinking about the glass. Matt, with gentle hands god bless him, takes the flowers from me. I sort of come back down, as if I was high, and everything seems dull again, blackness, oblivion behind these eyes.

“Well,” Sullivan says, “nothing’s broken. At least we know you wouldn’t get very far if you managed to escape.” She starts to laugh, it’s seems inappropriate and my heart gives a squeeze.

“Okay, that seems like enough for today.” Matt declares, grabbing my elbow to steer me away. I blink rapidly, something I do when I really want to see. Another old habit, like blinking the sleep out of your eyes, or blinking to adjust to a suddenly dark room. The blackness just swallows me more and more.

Matt walks me back into the room, he’s close enough that I can feel his warmth, his radiency. He sits me down on my bed, reaches for a chair I presume from the noise it makes when he drags it the wrong way on the carpet, the way it protests when he sits. I never considered the fact that Matt might be heavy, might be big, even fat. For the first time since I’ve known him, I wonder what he looks like.

“Cathleen, Cath- Hey! Snap out of it.” He snaps in front of my face, which is actually really unlike him. I move my eyes, there’s nothing there.

“Yes. Yes I’m here.” I murmur quietly, my voice sounds distant.

“What happened back there?” He asks. I raise an eyebrow.

“I bumped into a table, Matt. It happens. I’m blind.”

“No, not… not that. The flowers, the glass vase? You caught it.”

“This is true.” I say, “What’s your point?”

“How? How did you catch it?” He demands, voice suddenly pitching with urgency. I think for a second, collecting myself, focusing on his question until I am one hundred percent with him.

“I could hear it. Well, feel is a good way to describe it too. It was, it was the way the air moved around the glass, the sound of the water. Whoosh.” It sounds stupid, even to me. I sigh.

“And anyways,” I retort, “how did you even know I was going to bump into something? You’re interrogating me, but did you forget you’re blind too?”

He takes a sharp breath in, as if I’ve stepped on his toe during a slow dance at a high school prom. He doesn’t answer for a minute.

“I knew there was a table there because I’ve bumped into it before.”

“I call bullshit.”

“I have to go.” He says finally. I frown, his voice deepens when he says goodbye. Before I can really protest, he’s taken his cane and his glasses (of which I hadn’t know he took off) from my bedside table, and gone out the door. That is very un-Matt like.

His questions get me thinking. How did I catch the vase?

***

“I’m telling you Foggy, it was not normal. Like, she hit the table, it started the fall, and bam she caught the vase, plucked it right out of the air. Like it was nothing. Like she could see it clear as night and day.” I exclaim, throwing my hands in the air as I pace Foggy’s little office. I can feel my blood thumping loudly in my ears.

“You know what that sounds like?” Foggy asks.

“What?”

“You. It sounds like you.”

I have no way to respond. I have this sinking feeling in my stomach. I start to think, think quickly.

_“We were altering genes to heighten them… so that when it was done with you, your senses would be a hundred times better than before.”_

“Shit, Foggy.” I say, “This really can’t be good.”

“Looks like you have a Mrs.Daredevil, am I right?” Foggy teases.

“This isn’t funny!”

“I know, I know. I just don’t know what to tell you.” He admits. “If she’s found guilty at the trial, and this stuff with her DNA keeps happening, I don’t know how she’d deal with it.”

“Then we better win. She needs to be found not guilty, so I can monitor her.” I surmise, wringing my hands uncomfortably. “Look, if she’s found guilty…  I’ll take action. I won’t let an innocent woman rot in a jail cell for the rest of her life.”

“You mean, like Daredevil action.” Foggy concludes, realizing what I’m hinting at. I listen as his heart speeds up, and then slows down.

He’s not going to fight me on this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!  
>  i keep getting new ideas, different paths i can put this story on  
> im very excited


	4. just a moment of bliss amid all the waste

The trial lasted a week. It was a gruelling five days, not even a full week, but we made it to the other side alive. A lot of it was legal talk, some things that I had no desire to learn about, and others I knew too well. How strong my case ended up being because the guy I supposedly tried to kill never woke up from his coma, even as sad as that was. How the bruises on my wrists, my blind eyes, and my obvious melancholy aura helped swing the sympathy to me. How the cross examination didn’t shake me as much as they’d hoped, how they couldn’t dig up anything from my past. How, when they tried to, Foggy and Matt easily brought up my “renowned” research from even before grad school. It makes me wonder how I ever doubted them.

When they found me not guilty, the rush that overwhelmed me was almost painful. I could feel the tears in my eyes, growing and then spilling over. My head was down, my hair parly in front of my face, but I could hear both Matt and Foggy let out a big breath, relief clear as day. Matt’s hand found mine, and I squeezed, lifted my head so that my hair fell away. I wished desperately, for a moment, to see his smile.

“I told you! I told you all! Foggy Nelson, everyone! Psychic!” Foggy exclaims excitedly, hopping from one foot to another in front of us. I swing my guiding stick in front of me, smiling for the first time since the incident. The night I lost my sight.

“Matt! Oh man Matt she’s smiling! It’s glorious!” Foggy also cried out gleefully.

“Really?” Matt gasps sarcastically, “I must see this for myself.”

He stop walked, grabbing my elbow to stop me too. He firmly puts both his hands directly over my face, covering it completely. I giggle underneath his skin, feeling the blood pump warmth around his fingers.

“It’s true!” He declares, “She smiles!”

“Matt,” I say, walking forward slightly, “stop with the face touching. You’re going to give me acne.” He laughs, and puts his hands down. Instead, he grabs my elbow, and puts his arm through mine. He’s guiding me.

“This is a good night,” Foggy says, “We should all go get drinks to celebrate.”

“Where?” I ask, without thinking.

“Oh it’s this little place we know--” Foggy starts.

“Oh shit! What am I talking about? I need to go home, check on my apartment. I haven’t been there since this whole thing started.” I explain, “That was three weeks ago.”

“Well why don’t we go to your place?” Matt suggests, “Put some food in the fridge, maybe move some things around.”

This sounds nice. I nod, knowing it’s okay because my hair is touching Matt’s shoulder, and he’s blind not stupid.

Foggy hails a cab, and we all get in.

“529, west 48th please.” I tell him.

***

Cathleen’s place is a nice studio apartment, the type you know would cost a fortune if it weren’t for the fact it was in a shitty neighborhood. It reminds me of Matt’s place, in the way that it almost doesn’t look lived in. There’s a comfortable looking couch, but no tv. A bookcase covers the wall, filled with books from top to bottom. My heart twists when I realize she’ll never get to read normally again.

The floor is hardwood, nice but needs to be polished. The wall is exposed brick, but it’s classy. The best part of all, though, is the kitchen. It’s been redone, she says, and is stainless steel. It’s collecting dust, but it still shines. Honestly, it looks like a great place to make a mean omelette.

She turns a light on the wall for me when we come in, fumbling with it for a second. Probably trying to memorize where it is. I watch almost uncomfortably as she puts her cane against the wall, and slowly walks forward into her living room. She touches the couch with just her fingertips, tracing it ever so slightly. She turns around, walking toward two double doors that almost look like they lead to a closet. She’s careful, stops when her fingers hit the wood. She follows the grooves down until she finds the handles, and pushes one of them aside. The door reveals a bedroom space.

Matt comes over to me where I’m standing in the kitchen, pretending to look through her cabinets and fridge to make inventory of her food. Really, I get the feeling we’re both watching her, trying to gauge her reaction to her home without her sight.

“Is she okay?” I whisper to him, knowing he can hear me not matter how low I make my voice. He nods in response, but he looks perplexed as he focuses his senses on her.

“What’s she doing?” I ask.

“Currently? Changing.”

“Oh.”

This time I actually do look through her food.

Cathleen comes out in a tshirt and boxers. I’d only ever seen her in a hospital gown, and then today in one of Karen’s dresses that seemed a little long on her. Karen was probably around 5’7”,  with Cathleen at 5’5”. I didn’t realize until now how different she looks in her own clothes, her own environment.

Her legs are strong, lean, toned. Like she’d been athletic all her life. Where Karen’s legs are attractive because they look soft and inviting, Cathleen’s are attractive because they seem powerful.

Actually, her entire frame seems strong. Her arms are laced with muscle too, healthy looking. They’re covered in freckles, just like her face, and the tops of her hands, and even the tops of her knees. They’re splattered like war paint, an allusion to her heritage, I suppose. I wonder if because of Matt’s abilities and his “world on fire” if he knows her hair is actually a dull orange, wavy, long, going down her back and over her shoulders. I wonder if he can tell that her eyes are blue, but pay tribute to their old color with flecks of green and gold in the center. I wonder if he realizes she’s stunning.

“Did you find anything to eat?” She asks as she pads in, a pile of clothes clumsily folded in her hands. Karen’s clothes. I can’t remember if there was anything at all in her fridge. I stumble for words.

“Yes,” Matt answers for me, “There’s spoiled milk, old pizza, beer and Chinese in the fridge. In the cabinets there’s cereal and ramen.”

Her eyes respond to the sound of his voice, landing somewhere over his head. She seems to grimace, and nod to herself knowingly. I walk forward quickly to take the clothes from her, guessing she wants me to return them to her. She nods her gratitude, walking carefully in the kitchen to feel the handle of the fridge, and open it. When she does, her nose wrinkles like she’s smelled something bad. With a pained look on her face, she reaches in and grabs three beers. Closes the door, rubs her nose.

“Gotta get that milk out of their, it stinks.”

I look at Matt as I grab two beers from her hands. I give him one, and go and sit on the couch. It’s comfortable. Matt comes around too, with Cathleen gently hanging onto his elbow to guide her. They both fumble with the edge of the couch, and sit down with me.

“You know…” Matt says slowly, opening his beer to take a sip, “I couldn’t smell that milk.” I know he could, but she doesn't.

She shrugs, opens her beer, relaxes into the couch. She knows he understands.

“I don’t think Foggy could either.” He comments. “What else can you smell?”

She considers this, fingering her beer as she thinks.

“I can smell both of your scents. Distinctly.” Cathleen reveals. “Foggy you smell like the coffee shop down the street from your office, deodorant and… and sex. You smell like two peoples sweat mixed together. Which is what sex smells like, apparently.”

I choke on my beer, remembering the fact that I had stayed at Marci’s last night.

“Matt,” she starts, “You smell like coffee too. But something else… some other material. I don’t know what it is. Blood too. Wait, shit. Are you bleeding? C’mere.”

I watch as Matt’s face twists in unpleasant surprise. Cath puts her beer between her knees, and reaches out to unbutton Matt’s jacket that he wears for official lawyer business. He doesn’t usually like people touching him like this, but she’s doing it with a blind hand so he doesn’t protest. She gestures for him to take it off, but just does it for him when she realizes he’s just as blind as her. He looks pale.

“Matt what the fuck…”

Right underneath one of his armpits is a round red stain, not yet dry. She reaches out with steady hands, touches it gently to feel it’s moistness. They wince at the same time.

Of course, it makes me worried he’s bleeding, but I also know that he can take care of himself. I just wonder when he’s had the time to be a martyr during the time we’ve been trying to prepare for her trial. He must never sleep.

I’m more worried about her reaction.

“Matt, what happened? You have stitches…” She trails off, staring blankly somewhere past his head, her brows furrowing together in obvious worry and confusion.

“It was nothing,” He lies, “I tripped in my apartment, hit my side on a table.”

“Oh.” Is all she says.

“Do you have any gauze, perhaps?” Matt asks, putting his beer down to stand.

“Yes,” she answers, “my bathroom. It’s the door to the left of my bedroom doors, the gauze is under the sink somewhere.”

Matt nods, turns to go look for it. She grabs his wrist, which surprises us both.

“Foggy, why don’t you go get it?” She suggests, her voice making the question an obvious demand.

“Right,” I agree, “I’ll go get it.” I stand, turn around and go down the hallway, anxiously waiting for what happens next. I turn into the bathroom, it’s clean but small. I hear their voices drift in, soft but urgent. I strain to hear them as I open the doors to the bottom of the sink. I reach for the gauze, all the way in the back, and hear clipped words.

“...not blind…”

“...be truthful…”

“...help me?”

“Cathleen listen-”

“Please just-”

I swallow, and leave the bathroom and try to seem like I wasn’t listening. Matt probably knows anyways. When I come out, they’re obviously in a heated discussion. I approached nervously, it seems Cathleen is waiting for Matt to answer an important question. He just looks down at her from where he’s standing. His lips are pursed in a tight line, his hands in fists.

“I’m not going to do that, Cathleen.” He hisses.

“I need you, Matt. I need you to do this for me.” She begs quietly.

“I won’t! No one will come after you, I’ll keep you safe on my own. You don’t need anything else.”

Cathleen sighs in frustration, and puts her head in her hands. Breathes deeply. Rubs her temples, squeezes her eyes shut.

“I have a headache,” she tells us, “why don’t you clean Matt up, Foggy, and then go?”

“Yeah Cath,” I answer, taking my coat off the couch, “We’ll call you in the morning.” I wonder briefly if she’ll be able to pick up her phone if she can’t see the screen.

She nods absentmindedly, and gets up from the couch. When she passes us, she gently squeezes our arms, and then disappears into her bedroom, shuts the doors. I hear her bed protest as she gets into it.

Matt looks at me as we leave her apartment, his stitches cleaned up. He’s frowning.

“What did she want, Matt?”

He takes a deep breath, reluctant to answer.

“She’s too smart for her own good.” He murmurs. “She figured out that I’m… that I can see more than I say I can. She’s observant, even without sight. Figured out that I go to a gym, she could smell the adhesive from the tape I put on my hands. She wants me to bring her, teach her some self defense. She thinks the men who took her sight will come after her because she got off.”

“Jesus,” I sigh, “she’s getting worse every day.”

“Or better,” Matt adds, “depending on how you look at it.”

I nod, take his elbow as we cross a road. It’s a force of habit, but he seems to relax a bit under my grip.

I smile, squeeze his arm. “Share a cab?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Matt answers, “That’d be great.”

***

_Red hair, a flame in a dark room, I’m a moth, I’m gravitating towards it’s warmth.  Flecks of green, of gold, blind blue eyes. Blood seeping into my hands, a bloody smile, a white feather turning black as it drifts to the floor. Cathleen...._

“Foggy! Foggy! Foggy!” My phone chirps, disrupting the dream I’m in. I sit up quickly, blinking sleep out my eyes, and reach over to tape my phone.

“Foggy? What’s up, it’s a Sunday.” I protest.

“Matt, it’s Cathleen, There’s something really wrong, we need to go now.”

“What? What happened?”

“I-I don’t know. Karen went to bring her breakfast, her door was open. She found her convulsing in bed, her hands over her ears... Just meet me there as soon as possible? Karen’s with her now.” The urgency in Foggy’s voice makes my heart race in fear.

“I’ll be there soon.” I say, and end the call.

 **  
**I jump out of bed, pull on a shirt and sweatpants, and run out the door. I’m in such a rush I forget my glasses, and my cane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hello, sorry about all the errors, i wrote most of this chapter last weekend when I had a 101 degree fever, sorry! i also was listening to bad religion for a lot of this, sorry for the references


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